News

SEAL statement 20 September

As this week is Being Healthy week our SEAL statement is ‘I know how I can keep healthy.’  

Health Week 20 September

Health week is nearly here.  There are lots of activities and visitors planned including karate, yoga, netball, boxing, trigolf, dance, d:side, Captain Carrot, BUPA and visits to Allerton Grange.  Don’t miss the food fairs after school on Wednesday and Friday.

SEAL statement 13 September

As the children are settling into their new classes our SEAL statement for this week is ‘I understand how it feels to do something new.’  This maybe a new school, new class, new routines or many other things that are different at the start of a new year.  By recognising their own feelings in these situations the children can in turn help others.

Survey of Parents and Carers

Thank you to all the parents and carers who took the time to complete the annual survey in the Summer term.

As with previous years, we wanted to know your views about key aspects of school life: enjoying, achieving, feeling safe, being healthy etc.  We also had a particular focus on how we communicate with you.

Some key findings

100% said that their child enjoys being at Moortown Primary School and feels safe at school.  Over 90% of respondents said that Moortown Primary promotes a healthy lifestyle, that our ethos promotes their child to respect and cooperate with everyone, that behaviour is good and that communication is effective.

Based on your responses, there are just a few areas which we want to keep improving at.

Making a Positive Contribution

Although 82% of parents / carers said we encourage our children to make a positive contribution (and only 2% disgreed), we want this to be better.  This year, we’ll have a second Making a Positive Contribution Themed Week; the last was in 2009 and was a great success.  We’ll continue our lunchtime litter-picking club; this is where Mrs Bald selects from many enthusiastic volunteers to leave the school at lunchtime and tidy our local environment (look out for our Clean Up Kids during Thursday lunchtimes!). At Christmas, we’ll sing Christmas carols to the local community at Marks & Spencer again.  We’ll continue to support our two charities (WWF and NSPCC), as well as other emergency appeals (last year, helping victims of the earthquake in Haiti; this year, helping flood victims in Pakistan). Along with other Leeds schools, we’ve established links with a school in South Africa because we want our children to learn more about other cultures.

These are just a few examples of how we will encourage a positive contribution – we’re always happy to hear more.

After-school clubs

We want to provide a wide-range of clubs.  80% of you said curriculum and clubs meet the needs of children (and only 3% disagreed).  Based on your comments, most of you considered clubs, not the curriculum, when responding to this.  Your suggestions included more physical activities and drama – clubs on offer this term include gymnastics, yoga, taekwon-do, football training, street dance and street dance.  This is a greater range than ever before and all will go ahead if there’s enough interest following the taster sessions. A very small number of you also commented about the lack of clubs for children in Reception.  We offer fewer clubs for these children because by the end of the school day, we (and most parents) find their child is too tired.

Communication

Nearly all the comments regarding communications were positive: many of you appreciate the variety of different ways we’ve started to communicate, including this website and Twitter, but also texts and emails, the noticeboards and the newsletters. The only area to improve relates to cancelling clubs at the last minute: obviously this is inconvenient and we always try hard not to do this, although sometimes things out of our control mean we have no alternative.

It’s not always possible for teachers to be around at the start and end of the school day, but please be aware that teachers are happy to speak with you either straight away or by making an appointment – do this directly with the class teacher or through the school office.  We always want to listen to your questions, comments and concerns.

Thanks once again for the responses.  We do take note of areas to get even better, and we do use your responses in Ofsted documents.

If you’d like more information about the Annual Survey and the responses, please contact school.

SEAL statement 6 September

‘New Beginnings’ is the new SEAL theme for this half term and the first weekly statement is ‘I can make someone feel welcome.’

Children and also some staff are experiencing new beginnings and over this half term the children will be looking at how they can all contribute to establishing a welcoming and safe environment for learning.

Ofsted 2010

Parents and carers recently received a letter from Ofsted saying that our next inspection would not be until 2011-12.  This is due to our sustained good performance.

We know Moortown Primary is a great school. This year, we have had the best ever Key Stage 2 SAT results (100% of children attained national expectations in Maths, and 97% in English).  Our attendance rate has greatly improved – it’s now much closer to national standards.  Our Local Authority School Improvement Partner (12.07.10) has praised leadership for the systems in place that link self-evaluation and school improvement, and rates our capacity for sustained improvement as outstanding.

We believe that this delay in inspection will allow us to carry on getting better and better at the things we know matter, including the things you raise in the Annual Survey.  However, the delayed inspection means a more up-to-date recognition of our recent successes and outstanding achievements is also delayed.

Thank you to everyone involved in our school: parents, staff and most of all our pupils.  Please carry on telling friends and neighbours about how great Moortown Primary is – a happy, healthy and successful place to learn.

The Ofsted letter (07.07.10) reads:

Dear parent

Moortown Primary School

I am pleased to provide some important information about Moortown Primary School.

As you may know, during its last inspection in April 2007, Ofsted inspectors judged your child’s school to be good. Schools which are performing well are now inspected less often than other schools.  This usually means that good schools are inspected once in every five years, whilst satisfactory schools will be inspected at least once every three years.

Some good schools are inspected after three years; others may have their inspection put back.  To help decide whether we can wait longer than three years before undertaking a full inspection of a good school, such as your child’s, Her Majesty’s Inspectorate look at various sources of information, as listed below.  This is called an ‘interim assessment.’

The results of the interim assessment

In carrying out the interim assessment, we considered the following:

• pupils’ academic performance
• pupils’ attendance
• any visits carried out by Ofsted since the last inspection
• complaints about the school by parents or carers
• any other significant issues brought to Ofsted’s attention

I am pleased to inform you that our interim assessment shows that the school’s performance has been sustained and that we can defer its next full inspection.

As a result, the next full inspection will not take place any earlier than 1 September 2011 unless we receive information in the course of the coming year that causes us to inspect earlier.

I wish everyone involved in the school continued success in the coming year.

Yours sincerely

Christine Gilbert

SEAL statement 12 July

This week’s SEAL statement ‘I am ready to cope with a change of teacher’ is the final one for this year. 

As the children will be spending time this week with their new teacher this is a good opportunity to consider how they feel about this change and to ask lots of questions about their new class and teacher.

More great feedback!

Most people will know that one of the awards we have at Moortown Primary School is the Basic Skills Quality Mark which recognises the great work our staff do in teaching key skills such as reading, writing and maths. Recently, we had a monitoring visit and here’s some of the feedback we’ve received:

Moortown Primary is a lively, united school which provides a welcome learning environment.

The key to the school’s recent successes is the detailed knowledge that the staff have about the abilities and attributes of every child. The Headteacher maintains a comprehensive tracking system…devised by himself to fit the needs of the school. He has at any one moment up to date knowledge of how each pupil is progressing.

Staff have questioned the elements of the curriculum and teaching style that work best for the school’s children…it is relevant to all pupils. Different styles of learning have been addressed. The detailed staff knowledge of the pupils means that work is planned effectively to meet individual need.

Pupils met on the monitoring visit were lively and fully engaged in their learning.

This and other recent recognition (such as Miss Collins’ award for care and guidance, Yorkshire Evening Press awards for best topic and learning mentor, our success at the ICT Celebrating Success conference) show just how fantastic Moortown Primary School is.  Quite possibly our best ever Year 6 SAT results back this up, too!

Starting school in September 2011?

Parents / carers of Reception 2011 children:

Thank you to those parents and carers who attended one of our two Open Mornings. If you didn’t attend and would like to visit, you’re very welcome to arrange a one-to-one visit – we’re always happy to show people around our happy and healthy learning community.  The Headteacher, Mr Roundtree, or another member of staff will make sure all your questions are answered.  Contact us to make an appointment.

In addition, the Admissions Team are running drop-in sessions for parents / carers applying for their Reception place.  You can go along with questions and ask for advice.  No appointment is necessary – call 0113 2475560 for details.

Parents / carers of children currently in Year 6, starting at secondary school in 2011:

By now, you will have visited secondary schools and made your choice about where your child goes after their time at Moortown Primary.  The deadline for application is 31 October 2010.

When applying for a place at primary or secondary, there are a few important points to remember:

• Applying online is the quickest, easiest and safest way to apply – use the Education Leeds website to support you.  You can apply online for primary schools between 1 November 2010 and 15 January 2011. (If your child is currently at Moortown Primary and you’re applying for secondary schools, the same procress applies but the deadline is 31 October 2010.)
• It’s important to apply on time for your preferences to be considered.
• Even with older brothers or sisters at the school of your choice, you must still apply.
• You should put the school you most want as your first choice.
• You should consider putting down your nearest school, even if it is your third preference.  If you don’t, you may be allocated a school out of your area.
• You must use your home address; any offers made will be withdrawn if it’s later shown that a false address was used.

Please get in touch if there’s anything you’d like to ask us about our school and what we can offer you and your child.

Test results

On Tuesday, 06 July, the Qualifications and Curriculum Development Agency (QCDA) released 2010 Key Stage 2 National Curriculum test results. We will shortly send home the results for our current Year 6 class – at the moment, it appears our children have done extremely well. This is thanks to their great efforts, and also the exemplary teaching and support we offer at Moortown Primary.

Regarding the results, Education Secretary Michael Gove has said:

I am delighted that all National Curriculum test results were made available to schools today.

Almost three quarters of schools administered the tests this year, showing that the vast majority of headteachers did not support industrial action. It’s unfortunate parents and pupils in the schools that boycotted the tests will not benefit from the information that can be taken from test results.

Rigorous external assessment provides the public and professionals with valuable objective data and plays a vital role in the accountability system.

The best school systems generate rich quantities of information which enable us all to make meaningful comparisons, learn from the best and identify techniques which work.

I do accept there are flaws with the current testing system so I am committed to reviewing National Curriculum tests to ensure they are as rigorous as possible and in the best interests of schools, children, parents and the public.

We want to consider what we can learn from other countries, to compare our tests with standards set elsewhere, and to look at how we can make the tests more useful.

I believe headteachers and teachers will agree the solution to strengthening the tests is to work together and agree on how they can be reformed.

While we work to improve and strengthen the tests, it is crucial that there is no gap in information provided to parents, pupils and teachers next year.

I can therefore confirm that tests in 2011 will take place in the week commencing May 9.

The week of the SAT tests is already noted in our calendar; as are school holidays and training days for next year. More important dates will be added soon.

More information about the 2010 SAT tests, including a list of schools which did not carry out the tests, can be found on the Department for Education website.